“Your way of doing things often alienates people who would otherwise support you,” Paula retorted.
The discussion went round and around. The hip, seated about the heated dialogue, continued to look askance at their group. Two more beers later, an agreement of sorts was reached. ASP would not reveal the nature of its CD, but every assurance was given that strict nonviolence guidelines would be adhered to. The Coalition would not endorse or approve of the ASP action, but it would not prohibit or disown the CD either.
“Fucking control freaks,” Lori slammed the Coalition after its folks left. More beer arrived. “They’ve got some face...”
“Look Lori,” Mary said, bored, “It’s been weird, but I gotta go. Can you find a ride home?”
“Greg?” Lori asked.
“Sure,” he said, feeling the beer on top of his high.
She lived in a studio near the campus. On the drive there, she continued her diatribe against the conservative, proprietary Coalition. Once parked in front of her apartment, she put a hand on Greg’s knee.
“I’m real attracted to you Greg,” she lowered her eyes, “Why don’t you spend the night.”
Sex with Lori was like riding a rodeo Brahma, and alternately, being ridden like one. Talk about a control freak, Greg managed to think through the alcoholic haze. She placed his hands and removed them when and where she wanted, urged on and then slowed his thrusting to her own agenda, and refused to cum while gloating over his out-of-control climax. Normally, such lack of spontaneity would have irritated him. But it had not prevented him from sleeping with her, and drunk, he merely fell asleep.
***
Peregrine scored $270 from the paint and hardware store on Main. Part of a chain, he’d staked it out that morning by purchasing several inexpensive, miscellaneous items. He took out the alarm, then entered through the toilet window in the back. He waited patiently behind a pyramid stack of paint cans while the security guard hired by the block played a flashlight through the front window around the store. Then he eased over to the sales counter. He quickly opened the register’s bottom security drawer with his tools, scooped out the money, and then smugly melted away into the night. With the theft, Alabaster PD took notice of Peregrine’s MO.
***
Smoke raised an eyebrow when Greg arrived for the non-violence training accompanied by Lori. But his expression did not alter otherwise, and he made no more of it.
“The Bay Area Progressive Student Network has joined with the Bay Area Peace Mobilization Council in calling for a one day, bay-wide general strike for next Wednesday,” David finished up the announcements before the training began, “It’s part of the National Peace Mobe’s ‘Stop Business-As-Usual’ call. It looks like the European peace movement is also endorsing that day of action. There’s a march and rally being planned for that day in San Francisco. Its supposed to be the biggest demo yet. ASP will have a very brief meeting after the training to discuss what we want to do.”
Larry stumbled in then, so he and Greg high-fived and retreated to a corner of the room for a private conference.
“Heard from one of my ‘customers’ that plane loads of FBI agents are arriving,” Larry rubbed his eyes, not used to such early hours, “Been arriving at SFO since day before yesterday at least.”
“Think they’ll declare martial law?” Greg asked.
“Naw,” Larry yawned, “More likely they’ll just flood the Bay Area with Feds, keep up the heat until something cracks.”
“If any of the TMRSB’ crack,” Greg commented, “We’ll be on the front lines with this riemanium business. What do you think we should do?”
“Keep on course. The way we got it set up, its a conspiracy rap for us, same as the rest of the group. We don’t have the, um, item in question, and so this Peregrine guy never shows again. What can they say? I would find another hiding place for IT ASAP. If the shit hits, they’ll search your house.”
“Yours too!” Greg was concerned, “What about your crop?”
“Dunno,” Larry shrugged, scratching his beard, “Guess I’m hoping it doesn’t come down to that.”
The nonviolence training started. Greg had not registered for the draft on purpose, but he had not broadcast his act of resistance to the general public. He considered himself a Leftist and went to anti-war demonstrations, but he had little interest in the activism of organizing and no desire for the martyrdom of conscience. In this way, he and Janet had been alike. If anything, Janet’s leaving was pushing him deeper into politics as a way of occupying his thoughts and avoiding his pain. But if the government chanced upon his failure to register and provided him with its obligatory “second chance,” in all probability he would register. “He who fight and run away, live to fight another day,” in Bob Marley^ words. He was relieved to learn from the training session’s legal council that the police were not in the habit of checking up on draft registration status, even on clearly political arrests. Too much bother. About the same time the ASU students began some non-violent role-playing, a triumphant, cocksure Edward Sumner convened the auditorium full of Bureau agents. The small army he had assembled in that auditorium, his second wave, talked among themselves.
“May I have your attention please,” Sumner smiled, standing behind the podium on stage, “I am Edward Sumner, and I will be your immediate director on this assignment, which the Bureau is code naming Operation Anvil. As you are all well aware, a communique from the Mexican Revolution Solidarity Brigade was received by Bay Area media yesterday, threatening to detonate a nuclear weapon in the area made from the riemanium stolen with the Piccoli gems, if the US military does not immediately withdraw from southern Mexico. The President of the United States has put our Bureau onto the highest alert possible, which is why all of you are here.
“Now, besides the missing riemanium, there is a fifth suspect, as yet unapprehended, from the theft. He is also wanted in connection with the murder of a Security Pacific guard. You’ll find a summary on him in your orientation folder. Whether he is part of this Solidarity Brigade, or Diamotti’s gang sold the riemanium to them, or there were two gangs of thieves involved is completely immaterial at this point. The stolen riemanium has become an instrument of domestic terrorism. Finding it and the Solidarity Brigade is our primary goal. If, in locating it, we also happen to find this ‘Peregrine,’ so much the better. But we’ll get our hands on him sooner or later once we have him on the Ten Most Wanted.
“Again, our first priority is the Solidarity Brigade and the riemanium. The President does not, I repeat, does not want to take the next step in declaring a State of Emergency, let alone Martial Law. He will consider this operation a failure if he has to resort to that. Commensurate with this responsibility, the President has given the Justice Department, our Bureau, and my Directorship ‘extended powers.’ I do not intend to fail.”
Greg joined the march assembling in Remley Plaza in front of the P&M building, under a cloud marbled sky sketched with wheeling gulls. He would miss his English class, but at least he wasn’t one of the students left behind to keep the P&M occupation secure. Margaret, books in hand, strolled up to him, Greg leaning on the fountain.
“Called you back,” Margaret smiled, “But your dad said you were at the occupation. Come on over tonight. My roommate’s skiing in Tahoe.”
She gave him a long, wet kiss, and Greg could not help but look around to see if Lori was in view. Then Margaret sauntered off, the movement of her hips tugging at his memories, not to mention his crotch. Definitely EM, electromagnetic, he thought. Sexy. He hoped that ASPs legal connections would, indeed, pop them out of jail on OR before the weekend. She liked sex. Lori, by contrast, used sex, and he suspected she didn’t like it much. Neither girl, he suddenly realized, was much interested in his view of sex, both assuming that he was the typical horny male interested in pleasure without strings.
“As for the logistics,” Sumner explained to the sea of suits, “Each of you will be assigned to a team, and each team will
be assigned either a region, a constituency, or a function. Your specific assignment may change as things progress, as might your team. In a nutshell, I’m looking for flexibility and cooperation from each of you on this assignment. Those who give this to me will be rewarded. Those who can’t be team players will be quickly transferred and, if I have anything to do with it, demoted. I am an easy man to approach, and I will listen to suggestions and criticisms. If I consider them meritorious, I will make appropriate changes. But I am also a strict task master who tolerates neither incompetence, laziness nor insubordination. Do I make myself clear?”
When about four hundred students had gathered in the Plaza with signs and banners, the march set off, between bad sculpture to College Drive and then to Main. They kept to the sidewalks under police attention until they reached California, the Coalition’s march assembly point. They joined another five hundred people with their own signs and banners. Accompanied by a police motorcycle escort blocking one lane of traffic, the march eventually walked west on Main, around the Loop, then back east on Main, headed toward the courthouse. The ASP “action faction” affinity formed up then, Lori saucily smiling at Greg.
“Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho! US Troops Have Got To Go!”
“All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance!”
The twenty strong CD-anxious group marched together along the route, part of the march but apart; Lori, Larry, Greg, David, Beth, Joseph and Nina among them. Smoke, swaddled in sunglasses, kaffiyeh and toque, as well as George walked alongside, both having taken support roles in the action. Greg walked behind Lori and ahead of Larry. Two sparrow hawks glided beneath patchy light and dark clouds, circled the crowd curious of the noise, then tilted away. As they crossed the slight rise at College, he glanced back to the march trailing back, now perhaps two thousand strong. Greg had gone to many a mass SF march, and once in Golden Gate Park he had managed to climb a hill for an overview. Impressive, but the Alabaster peace march sent the chill down his spine. He had grown up here. These were his friends and neighbors.
“Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho! US Out Of Mexico!”
“Not Another Vietnam! US Out Of The Yucatan!”
The march approached the eastern end of downtown. The combined city hall/courthouse was on the march side of Main across from the police station/jail, and the old US post office was now between the march and city hall, up a flight of stone steps.
“We have all seen, in our lifetimes, the beginning of Communism’s inevitable collapse,” Sumner rose to his theme, having switched from the immediate assignment to more philosophical levels. “But the fall of the Marxist scourge has not initiated ‘peace on earth.’ On the contrary, the developing world is aflame with war and terrorism. And youthful anarchy now proudly stalks the streets of our country, cousin to the common criminals, dope dealers and degenerates who are unraveling the moral fiber of this nation. The Bureau intends to make this assignment the beginning of a national effort to clean up this nation, to expunge the vermin polluting our society once and for all. America’s greatest enemies are internal; the rot that threatens to poison us from within. I intend to make the present campaign to recover the riemanium and break the Solidarity Brigade the spearhead of nothing less than the moral regeneration of this nation.”
The Coalition monitors deftly wheeled the march onto the sidewalk in front of city hall to shape a moving picket line that reached around for the entire block. The escort police parked their motorcycles. They took up observation positions, augmented by a few additional cops, and back-dropped by a throng of curious, passing observers. Everything was routine protest.
“The People United Will Never Be Defeated!”
“Money For Jobs, Not For War!”
They swung around next to the post office where, by law, all 18 year olds had to register for the draft. The ASP CDers broke from the picket, walked up the PO steps, linked arms in front of the inward swinging doors and sat down.
“No Registration, No Draft, No War!” They chanted.
The next two hours were a formidable chaos. The picket almost collapsed as several hundred others leaped to the stairs. The Coalition managed to reform the picket line, shortened and kept to the post office end of the block. The blockaders allowed customers to leave, but not to enter. In the blink of an eye, a dozen more uniformed police appeared, along with at least two plain clothes cops. The postmaster wound his way down the front steps to meet the police, and together they forcefully asked: “Who’s responsible here?” Dannie from the Coalition and David from ASP, along with the ACLU legal observer, stepped forward to explain the CD.
“Stop The Air War! No More Genocide!”
The police tried to intimidate while talking to the two reps; the uniforms forming a line at the base of the steps. They passed out riot helmets and sticks, but David as spokesperson for the group held firm. People were willing to get arrested, peacefully, to make their point about the immorality of the war. The ACLU lawyer reminded the sergeant-in-charge and the PO manager that an announcement of illegal assembly was required to give people not interested in arrest time to disperse. Dannie said that while the Coalition did not endorse the ASP CD, they understood how the vicious, imperialist US war in the Yucatan would bring people to the point of engaging in this nonviolent blockade.
“Peace Now! Peace Now!”
It was hard keeping the picketers in line, what with the police poised for riot. The postmaster waded back up to the front door and pushed himself angrily through the linked arms of the chanting affinity group. A paddy wagon pulled up at 4:40. The police sergeant stalked off to the command post of cops and cars on the corner. Rumors spread through the crowd that anyone arrested would not be placed in the city jail, but instead would be booked into the more distant, more violent, more crowded county facility. Time passed.
“Stop The Slaughter, Stop The War!”
The bluff edged toward 5 p.m. The cops in riot gear and poker faces continued to menace. Exactly at closing the PO guard locked the front doors. The ASP group stood up to cheer. They had won. They had shut down the post office’s draft registration for over two hours. The police line did not move, so the blockade spilled out on the sides, leaving vacant stone steps. A knot of ASU students, perhaps a hundred strong, with the victorious affinity in their center, triumphantly set off on sidewalks back along Main. Singing, chanting and waving signs, they walked back the way they had marched. Accompanied by two motorcycle cops, they dispersed around the Loop through Barbary Park. Many wound up at the Gondwana to celebrate.
As Lori, Mary, David, Beth, Greg and Larry drank beers and talked about going to a show, Stiletto Blue’s performance in Marinwood later that night. Joe Manley knocked on the Dimapopulos’s open front door. Gwen cooked in the kitchen and Marcus scrolled through a computer file, delaying as long as he could his daily telephone report and pep talk to Neal, truly an animal running scared.
“Just got off work,” Joe smiled, in uniform. “Peace demo.”
Joe was a SoCal surfer in police blues, thick blonde hair, well-trimmed moustache, a healthy build, and a winning grin.
“Yes, I was there,” Marcus said. He had stayed for the first half of the demo, surveying the crowd for a face he now knew by heart. The detective offered the officer a chair and something to drink.
“Beer if you got it,” Joe said and accepted a Foster’s Lager, “Didn’t see anybody resembling Peregrine.”
“Nor did I,” Marcus took a ginger ale for himself, “But then again, it was a confusing situation. Can I get copies of your department’s photos of that demo?”
“Sure, if you’ll do us a favor.”
“Shoot,” Marcus said.
“Sampson seems to think you have, shall we say, alternative sources of information,” Joe sipped the beer, “The stuff you passed on about Peregrine’s political connections was new to my Sarge. Anyway, lately we’ve had a series of local burglaries. Three so far, all the same MO.”
“And since Peregrine is supposed to be a burglar...”
“Who maybe was expecting a payoff from the Piccoli heist,” Joe finished the line of thought, “A payoff he never got.”
“Sure, I’ll help,” Marcus smiled, “Do you have a profile?”
“Right here,” Joe unfolded two pieces of paper stapled together from his shirt pocket, “This one is a pro. He wears gloves, uses professional tools, knows alarms and security, is neat and precise on the job, and knows the places he hits.”
“Ill get right on it,” Marcus said, knowing that Gwen would be doing the work, “How’re the clubs going?”
“One possible positive identification. The bartender at the Sprite in Fairfax, Saturday nights. Not 100%, and he said the guy hasn’t been back since before the night of the heist. This is late night bar lighting.”
“It’s a start,” Marcus said. “Did you give him my number?”
“Yep. One more thing. My superiors have been informed that some heavy federal action is about to come down, and we’re expected to cooperate. Seems some FBI boys are coming to town.”
“How do you feel about it?” the detective asked.
“I got nothing against the Feds,” Joe accepted another beer, “But I got to agree with Sampson that sometimes they can do more harm than good. They don’t know the area, and they certainly can muddy the waters.”
“So you’re still on the case?”
“Sure,” the cop smiled and drank. “Way I figure it we’ve got as much of a chance of turning up this Peregrine as they do. Better. We got some trumps in our hand.”
“You play bridge?” Gwen leaned out of the kitchen, where she’d been preparing a dinner of stuffed pork chops and asparagus.
“Now and again,” Joe admitted.
“Married?” Gwen continued.
“Girlfriend. She plays bridge too.”
“Bring her over some evening,” she smiled, “We’ll play a couple of hands.”
“Ill do that,” he agreed.
“Don’t know how I can thank you for your help on this case,” Marcus returned to the subject.
End Time Page 20
